Kick-off! Manual 2/01.id
Contents
1. A If an application runs certain long uninterruptible tasks the normal communication between the Kick off software and hardware can be temporarily stopped To keep Kick off from misinterpreting these pauses as crashes you can set this slider to a higher waiting time Be careful not to set this waiting time too low The lower the waiting time the more likely a long task will be misinterpreted as a crash Time allowed for system to restart If the Number of restart attempts setting see below is higher than 1 this slider lets you set how long the Kick off hardware will wait to reestablish communication with the software after a restart Normally the Kick off software reestablishes communica tion as the system finishes restarting If the system crashes again during restart the Kick off software won t be able to do this This slider lets you set how long the Kick off hardware will wait before it decides something is wrong and tries to restart the computer again Number of restart attempts A This slider lets you set the number of times the Kick off hardware will attempt to restart the computer if it crashes again during the restart process This feature works in conjunction with the Time allowed for system to restart slider above After detecting a crash and restarting the system the Kick off hardware will wait for the Kick off software to reestablish communication signifying a successful restart If th2. gt symbol in it This window is the Mac s built in mini debugger and while it is open no other soft ware can run The Kick off software will not be able to update Kick off s system timer and in a few minutes Kick off will restart the computer There are also several test applications available which purposely cause a variety of system crashes We offer one called Crash Test which is available in the Kick off installer and on our web site www sophisticated com Some crash utilities purposely quit all applications before crashing These utilities have less real world validity real crashes aren t so polite and actually disable some crash detection tools including Kick off The Kick off software will display a warning dialog if another application attempts to make it quit Testing application timers A To simulate a failure in an application with support for Kick off s application timers bring that application to the foreground and type command option escape You will be asked if you wish to force the application to quit click Force Quit Since the application wasn t able to quit normally its Application Timer will continue counting down Kick off will think the application has crashed and respond as you specified in the Application Crashes panel This test will not simulate a full application crash in an applica tion without support for Kick off s application timers For these applicatio
3. Introduction Thank you for purchasing Kick off Kick off continuously monitors your Mac system to make sure it is running normally If the system or an application crashes Kick off restarts it automatically Many popular server applications integrate Kick off support to give addi tional protection Once you install Kick off you can sleep well knowing your server will stay up and running System requirements Kick off works with any desktop Macintosh computer equipped with a USB port Use with a PowerBook requires a power adapter cord sold separately Kick off does not support the iBook Kick off uses the same patent pending technology as our PowerkKey Pro family of smart power strips to monitor your computer If it crashes Kick off automatically cycles the power to restart your server The Kick off software requires Mac OS 8 5 1 or later It supports Balloon Help Apple Help Apple Events and AppleScript Page 4 Kick off HRCI ELI Kick off detects crashes using both hardware and software working in combination The software gives the hardware the feedback it needs to determine whether or not the system has crashed so you must install both to use Kick off Hardware installation The Kick off hardware connects to one of your com puter s Universal Serial Bus USB ports as labelled with the symbol to the right to communicate with the software It also connects to you
4. User Manual by Jamie Green Kick off designed by Amar Singh Kick off software by Richard Elmore Critical mass Jonathan Feinstein Copyright 2000 2001 Sophisticated Circuits Inc All rights reserved MANKO 0201 Service requirements In the event of equipment malfunction all repairs should be performed by our Company or an authorized agent It is the responsibility of users requiring service to report the need for service to our Company or to one of our authorized agents Service can be obtained at Sophisticated Circuits Inc PO Box 727 Bothell WA 98041 0727 425 485 7979 FCC statement This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B digital device Kick off KO 1 pursuant to Part 15 of the FCC Rules These limits are designed to provide reasonable pro tection against harmful interference in a residen tial installation This equipment generates uses and can radiate radio frequency energy and if not installed and used in accordance with the FOR HOME OR OFFICE USE instructions may cause harmful interference to radio communications However there is no guar antee that interference will not occur in a particular installation If this equipment does cause harmful interference to radio or television reception which can be determined by turning the equipment off and on the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures C Tested To Com
5. will automatically restart the system at the same time of day on any day s of the week you specify As with application crashes Kick off will first attempt to initiate a Finder restart and the Finder will attempt to quit all open applications If an application fails to quit the Kick off hardware will then perform a hard restart after a delay specified by the Restart if system doesn t respond slider in the System Crashes panel O Some applications suffer from slow memory leaks or fragmenta tion of memory Over time these can accumulate and reduce the performance and stability of your server Periodically restarting your computer during times of low usage can reduce the chance of a crash occurring during times of high usage Kick off Page 15 Status light patterns Kick off s status light lets you know that Kick off is on the job The colors and patterns of this light indicate when the system is running smoothly as well as when Kick off is taking action When the system is running normally the status light will indicate the communication between the Kick off hardware and software solid orange computer turned off or Kick off unit not connected solid green computer starting up waiting for Kick off software to start blinking green running normally system timer counting down briefly solid green software resetting system timer If the system crashes and Kick off s system timer expires the s
6. work in most sys tems but you can customize its settings using the Kick off control panel This control panel is installed in the Control Panels folder and can be accessed from the Apple menu When you open the control panel a window appears with three tabs Click on a tab to reveal its configuration panel System Crashes ki Monitor system for crashes Restart if system doesn t respond for I l I l I I I imin 2 7 10 15 20 30 45 40 Time allowed for system to restart l l l l l l l l l l min 2 z3 4 r 10 15 20 30 45 60 Number of restart attempts Page 8 Kick off The System Crashes panel When you click on the System Crashes tab a panel appears with controls for customizing Kick off s system crash detection System Crashes Wi Monitor system for crashes Restart if system doesn t respond for l I I I I I Y 10 15 20 30 45 60 Monitor system for crashes If this box is checked Kick off will monitor your system and attempt to restart it when a crash is detected Uncheck this box to turn Kick off s system crash detection off O It is a good idea to uncheck this box before doing any unusually processor intensive task such as a long calculation See Restart if system doesn t respond below for more information Restart if system doesn t respond This slider lets you set how long the Kick off hardware will wait before deciding that the system has crashed Kick off Page 9
7. entire system You can configure when Kick off will resort to restarting the system by typing values into the two fields below this radio button The first value is the number of crashes that will cause Kick off to restart the system A value of 1 here is equivalent to selecting the Restart system immediately button Page 12 Kick off The second value and associated pop up menu is the interval in which these repeated crashes must occur If an application crashes once every few days Kick off will simply relaunch it but if it crashes repeatedly over a short period Kick off will restart the system Application status The third section of the Application Crashes panel con tains a list of currently running applications and their statuses The list shows all running applications including invisible applications that are part of Mac OS in the order they were launched The second column shows the current value of the timer for each application which supports Kick off s application timers This timer counts down each second until the next time it is updated by the application See Detecting applica tion crashes on page 17 for more information The third column shows the number of times each applica tion has been relaunched recently i e within the relaunching interval described above This alerts you to applications which may be crashing frequently Kick off Page 13 The Other pane
8. he short adapter cord 5 Connect the short adapter cord to Kick off s power cord 6 Connect the long power cord to Kick off 7 Connect the long power cord to the wall receptacle Connect the USB cable and install the Kick off software as described in the Installation section Page 24 Kick off Troubleshooting Kick off doesn t restart my computer after the system crashes Some crashes which appear to be system crashes are actually caused by applications Though the system may be unre sponsive other processes are still running normally See Detecting Application Crashes on page 17 for more infor mation Kick off turns my computer off after a crash but doesn t restart it Make sure your computer is set to restart after a power failure See Software installation step 10 on page 7 for more information Kick off doesn t restart my computer after a power failure Make sure your computer is set to restart after a power failure See Software installation step 10 on page 7 for more information I disabled my Kick off software but my computer keeps restarting every few minutes If the Number of restart attempts slider is set higher than 1 the Kick off hardware will wait for the Kick off software to reestablish communication at startup Since the software has been disabled this won t occur and the Kick off hardware will restart the computer again To avoid this problem always
9. i cation interval field in seconds Other panel properties sysCrashRestartPriority Priority of system crash log mes sages appCrashPriority Priority of application crash timed appTimerExpirePriority restart log messages timed restart appRelaunchPriority messages use the same priority as appCrashkRestartPriority application crash restart messages appLaunchPriority Priority of application launch quit appQuitPriority log messages appForceQuitPriority daemonLaunchPriority Priority of Kick off Extension daemonQuitPriority started and quit log mes daemonQuitAEPriority sages Q See the monoLog User Manual for a description of priority levels of log messages To disable any of these log messages set its priority value to 1 Kick off Page 21 bookmarkingEnabled Set to true or false to enable or disable relaunching of open applica tions after crashes rebootDays Days to periodically restart the server set to 0 to disable periodic restarting O rebootDays is a bitmask field each day of the week has a value Sunday 1 Monday 2 Tuesday 4 Wednesday 8 Thursday 16 Friday 32 and Saturday 64 To set the days for restarting add the values for the desired restarting days For example to restart on Monday Thursday and Saturday set rebootDays to 2 16 64 82 rebootTime Time of day to periodically restart the server in seconds after midnight Using the properties You can examine and modify the
10. is doesn t happen within the time allowed the hardware can try again up to four more times If this slider is set higher than 1 and you disable the Kick off Extension you may experience unwanted restarts Be sure to set this slider to 1 before disabling the Kick off software Page 10 Kick off The Application Crashes panel When you click on the Application Crashes tab a panel appears with controls for customizing Kick off s application crash detection This panel is divided into three sections The first lets you enable application crash detection the second lets you configure crash recovery and the third shows you the current system status Application Crashes Wi Monitor for crashes in any application Wi Monitor timers in supported applications When an application fails O Restart system immediately Attempt to relaunch application and restart system if application fails times within Application Timer Value Relaunoehes Folder Actions monolog Extension Kick off Extension Finder My web Serwer MailSeryv Pra Monitor for crashes in any application If this box is checked Kick off will monitor all running applications for crashes This will detect any time an applica tion disappears causing an application has unexpectedly quit error message to appear Kick off Page 11 Monitor timers in supported applications If this box is checked Kick off will monitor a
11. l When you click the Other tab a panel appears with con trols for customizing all of Kick off s extra features Create alog entry when Wi the system crashes Wi application crashes timed restarts C an application is launched or quit Wf the Kick off Extension opens or quits C Relaunch open applications after crash Wf Periodically restart the system Se Meek Wome oR 2s Every O MoM oo ow Oo At 12 00 AM Create a log entry when Kick off supports our new monoLog software to make a log of system activity These check boxes let you configure what types of activities Kick off will add to the log Click the View Log button to open monoLog You can also use monoLog to notify you when important activities occur See the monoLog User Manual for more information Page 14 Kick off Relaunch open applications after crash If this box is checked Kick off will relaunch every applica tion that was running before a crash when it restarts the system This bookmarking feature is more flexible than Mac OS Startup Items folder since it returns your com puter to the state it was in before a crash The bookmarking feature will relaunch applications but it will not open documents that may have been open before the crash For security reasons the bookmarking feature is disabled when running in Mac OS 9 multiple user mode Periodically restart the system If this box is checked Kick off
12. lect Custom Install from the pop up menu to install optional components See the Read Me Kick off docu ment for more information on these components 10 Set the Energy Saver control panel to restart after a power failure In Mac OS 9 0 x and earlier open the Energy Saver control panel and select Server Settings from the Preferences menu Server Settings lt ag Restart automatically after a power failure LI Never put the hard disk to sleep In Mac OS 9 1 open the Energy Saver control panel and click the Advanced Settings tab Energy Saver Sleep Setup oY Notification Advanced Settings Sleep Options C Preserve memory contents on sleep IM Pressing power button puts computer to sleep Wake Options e Wake for network administrative access LI Wake for other network activity I Wake when the modem detects a ring Other Options E a after a power failure Kick off starts watching for system crashes as soon as your computer has finished restarting The next section shows you how Kick off works and how you can change its settings Kick off Page 7 As soon as you finish installing Kick off it will begin moni toring your system for crashes Kick off is designed to work unobtrusively in the background only the unit s status light see page 16 tells you it s running at all The Kick off control panel Kick off s default configuration should
13. ludes two types of application crash detection The first will detect any crash which causes an application has unexpectedly quit message to appear To do this the Kick off software watches as applications are opened and quit If one quits abnormally the Kick off software will notice and can respond as you specify in the Application Crashes panel Kick off Page 17 The second type of application crash detection monitors applications which include Kick off support This lets Kick off respond to failures which don t necessarily cause the application to quit This type of detection works in a similar manner to the system timers described in Detecting system crashes above An application with Kick off support periodically resets an application timer in the Kick off software If the application fails its application timer will count down to zero When it reaches zero the Kick off software will respond O You can see the application timers working in the application status section of the Kick off control panel A list of applications which support application timers can be found on our web site at www sophisticated com or check with your application s developer to see if they sup port Kick off Page 18 Kick off Testing Kick off Testing system crash detection To simulate a system crash hold down the command key and press the power key A small window will appear with nothing but a
14. ns Kick off only responds to application has unexpect edly quit messages Kick off Page 19 Using Kick off with AppleScript Advanced users can control all of Kick off s features with AppleScript or any other OSA compliant scripting language such as UserLand Frontier To work with Kick off l s set tings place a tell block in your script as follows tell application Kick off Extension end tell Application properties The Kick off Extension contains several properties which can be read or modified These properties correspond to the settings in the Kick off control panel version Version of the Kick off software System Crashes panel properties sys limerEnabled Set to true or false to enable or dis able system crash detection crashDetectTimeout Value of the Restart if system doesn t respond slider in seconds restartInterval Value of the Time allowed for system to restart slider in seconds restartCount Value of the Number of restart attempts slider Page 20 Kick off Application Crashes panel properties appCrashDetectEnabled Set to true or false to enable or dis able application crash detection app IimersEnabled Set to true or false to enable or dis able application timer monitoring appRelaunchCount Value of the Attempt to relaunch appli cation count field set to 0 to enable the Restart immediately button appRelaunchWindow Value of the Attempt to relaunch appl
15. omputer stays awake open the Energy Saver control panel and set the sleep slider to never You can click the Energy Saver Show Details button and set the display to sleep without affecting system performance Kick off Page 27 How to Contact Us Mailing Sophisticated Circuits Inc PO Box 727 Bothell WA 98041 0727 Shipping Sophisticated Circuits Inc 19501 144th Ave NE Ste D1000 Woodinville WA 98072 Phone Voice 425 485 7979 Sales 800 769 3773 Fax 425 485 7172 Internet Web http www sophisticated com E mail info sophisticated com sales sophisticated com support sophisticated com Page 28 Kick off
16. ply With FCC Standards e Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna e Increase the separation between the equipment and receiver e Connect the equipment into an outlet on a circuit different from that to which the receiver is connected e Consult the dealer or an experienced radio TV technician for help Shielded cables and I O cords must be used for this equipment to comply with the relevant FCC regulations Changes or modifications not expressly approved in writing by Sophisticated Circuits Inc may void the user s authority to operate this equipment Industry Canada statement This Class B digital apparatus meets all requirements of the Canadian Interference Causing Equipment Regulations ICES 003 Class B Cet appareil num rique de la Class B respecte toutes les exigences du R glement sur le mat riel brouilleur du Canada ICES 003 Class B Europe EU declaration of conformity Kick off conforms to the following European Directives and Standards Application of Council Direc tives 73 23 EEC 89 336 EEC Standards to which Conformity is declared EN60950 EN55022 EN50082 1 Copyright notice The Kick off documentation program product design and design concepts are copyright 2000 Sophisticated Circuits Inc All rights reserved Your rights are subject to the copyright laws of the United States of America Under the copyright laws this manual may not be copied in whole or part including translation to anothe
17. pplications which include Kick off support This will let Kick off respond to failures which don t necessarily cause the appli cation to completely crash A In order for Kick off to monitor an application s timer the applica tion must have support built in Many popular server applications already include Kick off support and more are added regularly A current list can be found at our web site www sophisticated com When an application fails This section of the Application Crashes panel contains a pair of radio buttons that lets you choose how Kick off will attempt to recover from crashes If you select Restart system immediately Kick off will restart the computer when an application crashes It will first attempt to initiate a Finder restart and the Finder will attempt to quit all open applications If an application fails to quit the Kick off hardware will then perform a hard restart after a delay specified by the Restart if system doesn t respond slider in the System Crashes panel If you select Attempt to relaunch application Kick off will first attempt to relaunch the application which crashed before it resorts to restarting the system Application crashes can potentially leave the system in an unstable state If the application keeps crashing after being relaunched it probably means that something else is wrong with the system In this situation Kick off can fall back and restart the
18. r language or format without the express written consent of Sophisticated Circuits Inc Trademarks PowerKey and Rebound are registered trademarks and Kick off and monoLog are trademarks of Sophisticated Circuits Inc Apple the Apple logo AppleScript Mac OS Mac Macintosh and PowerBook are registered trade marks and Balloon Help Finder and iBook are trademarks of Apple Computer Inc Frontier is a trademark of UserLand software Page 2 Kick off Introduction DY Ste TCGUITCMNCING ssas pee eyes pees yan st oe es 4 Installation Hardware installation 0008 5 Software installation g 8nd 8a ku ee eee ache ond eee 6 Using Kick off The Kick off control panel 8 The System Crashes panel 9 The Application Crashes panel 11 The Other panel nqocdxecaas sane perenne 14 Status light Panetno s eaeucqenayemenen eters 16 Advanced topics How Kick off works Detecting system crashes 17 Detecting application crashes 17 Testing Kick off Testing system crash detection 19 Testing application crash detection 19 Using Kick off with AppleScript Application properties 0 20 AppTimer Clements cahirteseeeieonse ete 23 Using Kick off with PowerBooks 24 Troubleshooting 005 25 How to contactus 26 Kick off Page 3
19. r power receptacle to enable hardware restarting Refer to the diagram below 1 Shut down your computer normally 2 Disconnect the power cord A from the back of your computer Kick off Page 5 Page 6 Connect Kick off s power cord B to the back of your computer Connect your computer s power cord A to the inlet on Kick off Connect Kick off s USB cable C to one of the USB ports on your computer Software installation 6 is Start up your computer normally Insert the Kick off CD into your CD drive and double click the icon labelled Installer The Installer window will open Kick off 1 0 2 Installer Easy Install Click the Install button to install Kick off 1 0 2 monoLog 1 1 3 Disk space available 2668 Approximate disk space needed 3 76K Install Location The folder Kick off Folder will be created on the disk The Bronze Install Location The Bronze Install Select a location for the Kick off manual and supple mental files from the Install Location pop up menu The Kick off Extension and control panel will be installed in the active system folder Click Install The Installer will ask if it can quit any open applications before it begins Make sure you don t have any unsaved documents then click Continue Kick off When the installation is complete the Installer will restart your computer O You can also se
20. se values by using Apple Script s get and set commands For example to change the value of the Restart if system doesn t respond slider to ten minutes execute the following command inside your tell block set crashDetectTimeout to 600 A It is possible to set values between or outside the marks on the control panel s sliders but they will snap back the next time the user modifies them from the Kick off control panel Page 22 Kick off AppTimer elements Kick off s application crash detection works by creating appTimers for each application being monitored Each appli cation sets its appTimer periodically to keep it from reaching zero If an appTimer does reach zero Kick off assumes the application has crashed and restarts the system You can use Kick off s application crash detection to mon itor custom scripts databases or applications you have written To do this your application should periodically send a tickleAppTimer AppleScript command tickleApp Timer 300 The Kick off software will automatically create a new app limer for your application if necessary and repeated commands will update that timer O You can also set your appTimer with a simple Apple Event bypass ing AppleScript Use Event Class PKPr and Event ID Tick and put the desired value as a long integer into the direct object parameter Applications will usually not need to view appTimers them selves but if you do wish to do
21. set this slider to 1 before disabling the software Kick off doesn t recover after an application crashes It is possible for applications to fail in ways that do not cause actual crashes Our application timer technology Kick off Page 25 gives Kick off another method of detecting application fail ures An application must be specifically written to support Kick off s application timers Contact your application s developer to see if they offer Kick off support O Kick off uses the same software as our Rebound product so if your application supports Rebound s application timers it auto matically supports Kick off as well If you are running an application which includes support for Kick off s application timers make sure its timer is being set Open the Kick off control panel and click on the Appli cation Crashes tab The timer should be shown in the list at the bottom of the panel If it does not appear check your application s user manual to configure this support Kick off restarts my computer when I run some applications or tasks Some long operations will take control of the computer and not give time to any other processes including the Kick off Extension The Kick off unit interprets this as a crash Increase the value of the Restart if system doesn t respond slider Some applications including some disk utilities and games will take control of the computer for ver
22. tatus light shows you the steps of the restarting process blinking green system timer counting down to zero short red blinks outlet turned off solid orange outlet turned on sending startup signal green w orange blinks computer starting up waiting for Kick off software to start If the computer restarts properly the light will resume blink ing green If not Kick off will attempt additional restarts based on the Number of restart attempts slider setting alternating red orange Kick off software failed to start up despite all restart attempts Page 16 Kick off How Kick off Works Detecting system crashes The Kick off hardware monitors your system by periodi cally communicating with the Kick off software Every few seconds the software resets a system timer in the hard ware which then counts down each second As long as the system is running normally the software will keep resetting this timer and it will never reach zero If the system crashes the Kick off software will stop run ning and won t be able to reset the system timer When the timer reaches zero the hardware will attempt to restart the computer Kick off restarts the computer by first switching off its power outlet to turn the computer off A few seconds later it turns its power outlet back on then sends the on signal on the USB port just as if you d pressed it on a keyboard Detecting application crashes Kick off inc
23. this you can deal with them like any other element of an application AppTimers have name and value properties You cannot set the properties of an appTimer but you can get them To set your appTimer use the tickleAppTimer command described above get name of every appTimer get value of app Timer My Application Q For development information on supporting Kick off see the PowerKey Software Developer s Kit in the Kick off installer and on our web site at www sophisticated com Kick off Page 23 Using Kick off with PowerBooks Because PowerBooks have internal batteries and external power adapters Kick off must be installed differently You must remove the PowerBook s battery allowing Kick off to restart the computer by switching power off and use a pair of adapter cords to connect Kick off to your power supply A Kick off is only compatible with the USB PowerBook not the iBook The iBook doesn t respond to the on signal from external keyboards so Kick off cannot restart it after a crash Sophisticated Circuits offers a PowerBook connection kit consisting of a short adapter cord and a longer power cord See How to Contact Us on page 28 to order these cables To connect Kick off to your PowerBook follow these steps 1 Shut down your computer normally 2 Remove the battery from the computer 3 Connect the PowerBook s power supply to the computer 4 Connect the power supply s wall plug to t
24. y long times If you need to run one of these programs you should temporarily uncheck the Monitor system for crashes box O This can be done automatically with AppleScript See Using Kick off with AppleScript on page 20 for more information An error message appears at startup every time Kick off restarts my computer saying the computer was shut down improperly This is a standard message that appears in Mac OS after a crash occurs You can disable this message in the General Controls control panel Uncheck the Warn me if computer was shut down improperly box Page 26 Kick off My log shows that Kick off restarted due to a system crash immedi ately after startup Kick off can t add an entry to your log while the computer is crashed so it adds one after it restarts the computer The monoLog software must be running before Kick off can add its entry so the monoLog Extension started entry will appear before the crash or any other entry Kick off s status light stops blinking when my computer goes to sleep Some models of Mac stop running applications when going to sleep To avoid spurious restarts on these machines the Kick off software disables the system crash timer when the computer goes to sleep The software will resume the timer when the computer wakes up While Kick off was designed not to interfere with sleep mode it s often desirable for servers to stay awake at all times To ensure your c
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